General Dynamics to supply Navy with more digital radios

The Navy has ordered more Digital Modular Radios (DMR) at a cost of $35 million from General Dynamics to use on its ships, submarines and in-shore sites, the company said Nov. 12.

Through an option on an existing contract, General Dynamics will provide 53 additional AN/USC-61(C) four-channel DMRs and also modify existing DMR hardware to accommodate networking waveforms owned by the government.

The DMR radio is capable of simultaneous, secure short-range and global communications on any of its four channels. The radio is interoperable with many legacy military radios and has been certified by the National Security Agency to protect information classified at the Top Secret level and below.

The planned hardware modifications to the radios also will make it possible for the Navy to use them interoperably with next-generation Defense Department radios, the company said.

General Dynamics has so far delivered more than 500 DMR radios to the Navy.

The Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command for the Department of the Navy Research, Development and Acquisition is the contracting authority.